


If they actually slept in, this entire shitstorm might not have happened, so don't blame me

by Grimbeak



Series: Scorpion-crabs and bad parenting fuck everything up [1]
Category: Lego Ninjago
Genre: After current canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Animal Attack, How would I even tag this-, I would say Zane has the braincell but he really doesn't, I'll remember more to add like .2 seconds after I close my eyes to go to sleep anyway, Idk dudes, Jay has... no more braincells after thsi, Kinda?, Lightning - Freeform, Lloyd has it, M/M, Monsters, Multi, Mystery AU for my friends on tumblr, Other, Sometime after it, Weird Plot Shit, drowning sorta, elemental powers, fuck u google, google won't tell me if dead scorpions fucking float so fuck you the shell floats, it's part crab anyway so it has a shell, just bullshittin the tags guys, keepin it vague for now bois-, not for long though !, not sure how ima make a summery for this so wish me luck-, oh FUCK i have to make a title shiiiiit, switching POVs, weeeeee, weird animal shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-14 12:27:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29667288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grimbeak/pseuds/Grimbeak
Summary: It was a perfect day.The birds were flying below them, the sky was moderately clear, and there was a giant crab-scorpion-thing on the Bounty’s deck.OR,I make an incredibly, ridiculously weird story and split it up into a bunch of works because that's the Vibe. Also I have literally no idea how to describe it so just read it.
Relationships: Cole & Lloyd Garmadon & Kai & Nya & Jay Walker & Zane, Cole/Kai/Jay Walker/Zane, Jay & a weird monster thing
Series: Scorpion-crabs and bad parenting fuck everything up [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2180064
Comments: 10
Kudos: 18





	If they actually slept in, this entire shitstorm might not have happened, so don't blame me

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know what this is either alr-

It was a perfect day.

  


The birds were flying below them, the sky was moderately clear, and there was a giant crab-scorpion-thing on the Bounty’s deck. 

  


Lloyd did not whisper “Perfect” to himself as he got thrown against the mast, instead he screamed rather loudly, as one tends to do when getting hit by a giant tail. 

  


Or… stinger. Whatever.

  


All he knew was that getting hit with it would _hurt,_ and he didn’t particularly want to get hit by the tip. 

  


The tip that was called the stinger.

  


...Lloyd didn’t know scorpion anatomy that well. To be fair, the creature also looked like a giant crab, with too many legs to count and skittering around the deck with the small amount of room it had, being a monstrous fusion of sorts. 

  


The other ninja were doing their best to fight it, but really seemed to be just getting thrown around, some because of the creature and mostly because of the sudden weight added to the ship causing the Bounty to tilt. 

  


“Lloyd-” Kai’s strained voice caused the green ninja to look over, seeing that his friend was being pinned down by one of the thing’s claws. “A little help?” 

  


“Right, sorry-” Lloyd paused to draw out more of his power, sending a ball of energy slamming into the creature’s chest. It howled (or...something along those lines) in pain, moving its claw to pound at the deck and move around, allowing Kai to scramble away. The fire ninja pulled back to stand next to Lloyd. “You okay?” the green ninja asked. 

  


“Fine,” Kai managed, eyeing the creature- probably looking for its weak spot. “Where’d this thing even come from?!” Without even waiting for an answer, he dove back into battle again, probably because of Cole’s anxious yell of something that Lloyd didn’t quite process.

  


The green ninja glanced up at the cliffs surrounding them, guessing the monster had probably jumped down. But that wasn’t important right now.

  


What was important was getting it off the ship before the whole thing went down.

  


The alarms were blaring already- Cole was helping Pixal try to steer it down without crashing into one of the rock walls, or plummet down to the river below. 

  


Either way would turn out very bad.

  


...And very possible, considering that the creature’s legs were splintering through the deck and _nearly_ long enough to stab through the side of the ship. As long as it didn’t hit the thrusters, or anything else severely important, they should be ok a _s long_ as they got the thing off the ship before they crashed. 

  


“We’re going to crash,” Nya announced, only sounding mildly panicked. “Unless we get it off the ship now, we are definitely going to crash and also probably die.” 

  


“Ok,” said Lloyd, who was now also trying not to panic, “let’s just… get it off the ship?”

  


“Good plan,” his substitute older sister agreed, more likely to reassure him than anything. She ran forward, pulling water out of the air to knock the crab thing away from Zane, and Lloyd followed. 

  


This was not going to end well.

  


  


***

  


Jay hissed in pain as one of the creature’s claws ripped through his gi and left a scratch on his hip. It wasn’t bleeding, not really, but it was one of those that hurt and stung anyway. 

  


He was getting tired- it was hard to fight in such an enclosed space. Usually, they didn’t have to worry about destruction of property- people knew to escape, and Ninjago City was big enough for them to find a temporary home at a lower price. 

  


But the Bounty _was_ their home. 

  


And there was a home intruder. 

  


He dodged another swing from one of it’s legs, falling back a bit and stopping near Zane, who was doing his best to hold onto the railing. “How ya doin?”

  


“Well,” his boyfriend started, “I’m moderately ok, considering our current circumstances.” The pair dodged the tail swinging at their heads. “Are you alright?”

  


“Yeah, yeah,” Jay said breathlessly. “‘m fine, just tired of this guy.” Another ball of green was thrown across the deck, snapping the creature’s head sideways with an annoyed screech. 

  


Jay eyed the creature’s back- no visible weak point, although there _had_ to be one. He’d dealt with loads of scorpions before, back in the junkyard, but never really with crabs before. And this thing seemed to be mostly crab, with a scorpion tail and pinchers added on. Fun! 

  


His usual solutions to dealing with scorpions was to A: run away, B: hit them with a shovel, or C: scream.

  


Screaming would be annoying, they didn’t have a shovel big enough, and running away kinda wasn’t an option unless he formed his dragon. And even then, he would be abandoning his friends and his home. 

  


So…. plan D. Which he hadn’t come up with yet. This was fine! 

  


A panicked call from Cole informed them that the Bounty was going to crash unless they got rid of the extra weight, _now._

  


This was not fine! 

  


Jay glanced over the railing, seeing that the river they were over was leading into a giant… lake thing. An ocean, even- he couldn’t see when the water stopped. 

  


And he got an idea.

  


Not a good idea, but it was an idea! Probably a bad one! 

  


They were going to be over the lake within the next few seconds, the cliffs slanting down to turn into hills and a beach. 

  


Jay turned back to the monster, watching as it threw Kai and Lloyd around like they were shoes being tossed by a toddler having a tantrum. 

  


He paused as the tail swung by him and Zane again, resting right between them. There were metal bands wrapped around the tip of the tail- they sort of clinked around the stinger, as if they were about to fall off. 

  


But that wasn’t important right now. 

  


He looked back at the barrier stopping them from falling off the ship- a waist-high one. Like a railing with the gaps in between filled up. _Not_ a wall. 

  


...This was a horrible idea.

  


He carefully pulled himself up on the barrier, hoping to god that the ship wouldn’t tilt and throw him off.

  


“Jay,” Zane said, speaking very carefully in case the lightning ninja wasn’t able to understand, “what the _fuck_ are you doing.” 

  


“I am,” the lightning ninja started, speaking quietly as to not worry his other teammates, “going to do something.” He turned to Zane, speaking quickly. “I need you to freeze over the top of the water when you get down there.”

  


“What?”

  


“Just do it! And, um-” he leaned over to give his boyfriend a peck on the lips- “Love you!” 

  


And then he grabbed around the tail of the monster, yanked it back as hard as he could, and promptly fell off the side of the ship, taking the creature with him.

  


*** 

  


Zane was not having a good day. 

  


It was barely noon, none of them had eaten yet, and one of his boyfriends had just plummeted off the ship while pulling a monster with him. 

  


It had started that morning when he was jolted out of rest with a claw splitting through his bedroom wall. 

  


Not a good way to wake up.

  


Then… they had all fought. For ages. If Zane had time to check his internal clock, he would’ve seen that it had been a few hours already. 

  


This was really getting annoying.

  


Especially with the whole ‘boyfriend-telling-you-that-he-loves-you-and-then-throwing-himself-off-the-side-of-the-ship’ thing. 

  


The ship rocked as the two fell, steadying itself after a few seconds and letting a strange silence fill the air. Both Kai and Lloyd were facing Zane, confused looks on their faces- they hadn’t seen that Jay took the monster down, and only that it randomly fell backwards.

  


“...Huh,” the fire ninja eventually said. “That was weird.” 

  


“Jay went down with it,” Zane blurted out. “We need to get down there, _now.”_

  


“What? I-” Kai stopped, and instead hurried off to where Pixal and Cole were steadying the ship. “Bring us down, now.”  
  


The other nindroid blinked, obviously confused. “But I-”  
  


“Jay fell,” Kai explained, and Pixal’s face lit up with surprise for a second before she nodded determinedly, pressing buttons and pulling levers and whatnot to get them down to the ground.

  


Zane glanced over the side- Jay and the creature were still falling, understandably, it was a long way down. But the bounty wouldn't be able to get down there in time. 

  


Zane let out an annoyed sound, and made a decision. 

  


He jumped off the ship as well. 

  


…

  


But instead of being like his idiot boyfriend and just falling, he formed his dragon and flew down to the beach.

  


He was pretty sure Jay gave him a thumbs-up as he flew by.

  


Zane landed after dissipating his dragon, a few bits of snow landing on the sand. He paused as he reached for the water.

  


“I need you to freeze over the top of the water when you get down there.”

  


...If he did it now, Jay would die. And that probably wouldn’t stop the monster. 

  


So…

  


He waited. Just for a half-second, it didn’t take long for Jay to land. Or, well, go underwater with the creature following him.

  


The wave blocked out Zane’s vision of the center of the lake where they had fallen for a second, but when it was gone and he was covered in water droplets, he slammed his hands down on the surface of the water and _froze._

  


***

  


Jay plummeted down, the crab-scorpion-monster-thing screeching and clawing at the empty air as it fell. 

  


The wind did not whistle in his ears. It was unusually silent, actually, and Jay felt as though if the wind were to be making a sound, it would be scolding him. 

  


I would like to say he was strangely calm as he fell, but in fact he was really just trying not to scream, for that would likely notify the creature just above him of their position, and Jay didn’t want to be slaughtered in midair, thank you very much. 

  


Luckily he wasn’t in midair for much longer, as he glanced down and was met with a face-full of lake. 

  


Jay managed to take a gasp of breath before he was plunged into the water, pain spreading through his entire body as he broke through the surface. Hitting water from high above was as bad as hitting concrete, he remembered. Well, Jay’d hit concrete before, and he could confirm that this definitely felt like it. It was almost _worse,_ somehow, because of the water taking advantage of the new holes in his gi (damn that monster) and filling it up to pull him down. 

  


If he wasn’t a ninja, he was pretty sure he would’ve died. 

  


...Honestly, Jay was surprised he was even still alive through the haze of pain nearly causing him to open his mouth with a yell. He didn’t, however, managing to keep it closed which he somehow still managed to do when the creature crashed into the water a few seconds later. 

  


It flailed its legs, unintentionally pushing it further from the surface and having its back push Jay down as well. The tail was waving around, and Jay wasn’t able to swim away fast enough to avoid getting hit-

  


The stinger struck him, and he went ice cold for a second before burning pain quickly spread throughout his body, a hot ache on his chest where blood was spilling out into the water-

  


He was about to start panicking, because getting stabbed was _not_ part of his plan (the plan that was really looking stupid right about now), but then he saw the water above him sort of change.

  


Ice.

  


_Zane._

  


Some part of this stupid, _stupid_ plan might actually work. 

  


Jay would’ve inhaled, except for the fact that he was surrounded by water, so instead he just let out a groan that he hoped sounded triumphant, and exhaled. Bubbles flew out of his nose as he kicked off the creature’s side, allowing Jay to sink next to it instead of under it. 

  


Master Wu had always said that their power was going to be stronger in life-or-death situations.

  


A buzzing under Jay’s skin confirmed that. 

  


It was part of his plan. The lightning was stronger than he’d ever felt before, and he could _use it._

  


So he did. 

  


***

  


It only took another few seconds for the other ninja to land the bounty- or, well, sort of crash it next to Zane.

  


“Where’s Jay,” Cole asked immediately. “Why’d you freeze over the lake?”

  


Zane shrugged, helplessly. “He’s under it- he told me to.”

  


“He say anything else?”

  


“No. But I assume he has a plan.”

  


Cole started to say something, probably along the lines of _why would you listen to him,_ but before he could he gawked and pointed at the frozen water. Zane looked over, and-

  


Oh. 

  


Lightning had erupted in the center of the water, spreading throughout it with beautiful lights shining through the ice- it was majestic, and also horrifying. 

  


“Holy shit,” Kai murmured on his other side, and Zane could only nod.

  


The sound hit them a moment later- a muffled _boom_ coming from under the ice, splintering it into shards and said shards disintegrating a moment later with the heat from the lightning. 

  


The lightning, upon escaping the ice, arced up into the sky for a few feet before being drawn back into the water, the strands of light pulling away from the shore and curling back into the center of the water, likely back to the source.

  


An empty, giant shell floated up to the surface and rocked there, like a small boat.

  


And then everything was quiet.

  


***

  


He couldn’t think.

  


He just… hurt.

  


Something cold found their way around Jay’s arms.

  


And then he was gone.

**Author's Note:**

> This ain't gonna end well-
> 
> I like comments, so leave some of those. Dunno when the next part is gonna be up, please be patient. Hopefully soon but to be completely honest with me it'll probably be like a month. 
> 
> Uhhhh. Yeah.


End file.
